A new abortion clinic will open in southeast Kansas this fall, bolstering the state’s role as a regional hub for reproductive health services whose neighbors have severely restricted access since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Wade.
Planned Parenthood Comprehensive Health Great Plains announced Tuesday that Pittsburg, Kansas, will be home to a new facility that will provide abortion procedures and pills, as well as pregnancy services, contraception and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.
After the reversal of Roe, Kansas was the first state where voters weighed in on abortion at the polls, vehemently rejecting a constitutional amendment that could have led to an abortion ban in August 2022.
Since then, the state — which bans abortion after 21 weeks of pregnancy — has become a destination for people from more restrictive nearby states seeking abortions.
In March 2023, 44% of patients who received abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics in Kansas traveled more than 250 miles (402 kilometers), compared to just 1% two years earlier, according to the organization. More than half of abortion patients are now from Texas, and some have come from as far away as Florida in recent weeks, said Emily Wales, president and CEO of Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains.
“You cross the state line from Missouri to Kansas and you automatically become a freer person who can actually take care of your medical needs in a different way,” Wales said. “We see it in the faces of patients who literally breathe easier when they come to Kansas.”
The abortion landscape in the US has been changing following the June 2022 Supreme Court decision that revoked the constitutional right to abortion across the country.
New bans or restrictions have taken effect in most Republican-led states, including 14 where abortion is now banned at all stages of pregnancy with some exceptions, and three more where it is banned after about six weeks of pregnancy – often before women realize they are pregnant. is pregnant.
For people in these states seeking to terminate a pregnancy, the main options are to obtain abortion pills through telehealth or underground networks, or to travel out of state to obtain abortion pills or procedures.
There were roughly as many in-state residents as out-of-state residents seeking abortions in Kansas in the years before the Supreme Court ruling, according to statistics reported and published by the state health department. This is primarily because Kansas City, Kansas, is easily accessible from Missouri, which has historically been limited in abortion providers.
In 2022, the number of out-of-state residents who received consent forms more than doubled, to 8,475, state data shows.
Pittsburg, Kansas, is more than 100 miles south of Kansas City and 150 miles east of Wichita. This means the new clinic will be hours closer to patients who may be traveling from Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma – and even Louisiana or Texas – where the procedure is restricted.
Pittsburg itself has a shortage of providers of contraception and other sexual health services, Wales said, but it has the “added benefit of being so close to neighboring states.” Later, the Pittsburg facility will also provide gender-affirming services.
Clinics are also moving to accommodate out-of-state demand. New Mexico has pledged $10 million for a new facility in Las Cruces, near the Texas border; a clinic that opened last year in western Maryland, just a few miles from West Virginia; and two new clinics opened in the southern Illinois city of Carbondale.
Ingrid Duran, director of state legislation for National Right to Life, said it’s not surprising to see new clinics popping up to meet out-of-state demand because of the financial opportunity for providers, she said.
“And it’s not surprising to know that people who want an abortion would travel out of state if it wasn’t offered there,” she said. She said states should also offer resources that “hopefully convince women considering abortion to choose something different.”
Caitlin Myers, an economics professor at Middlebury College who researches abortion policy, said she counted 78 abortion facilities open in the U.S. between May 1, 2022, and April 1 of this year. That number includes 10 transferred from another location in the same state, seven who changed states and 61 new providers.
The growth of providers located near state lines has sparked new efforts by those opposed to abortion to restrict the practice, calling it “abortion trafficking.”
A Texas man is trying to force his ex-partner to say who helped her obtain an abortion out of state, in a step toward civil enforcement of Texas’ abortion ban.
Lawmakers in at least two states have targeted people who help minors access abortions without parental consent. Tennessee lawmakers last month passed a bill that would make it illegal to help minors get abortions without parental consent; Republican Governor Bill Lee has not yet taken action on the matter. Idaho adopted a similar law last year, although a federal judge blocked its implementation while its constitutionality is questioned.
Kansas Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly is a strong supporter of abortion rights, but the GOP-controlled Legislature has veto-proof majorities and strong contingents who oppose abortion.
This year, the Legislature passed bills — and later overrode Kelly’s vetoes — for statutes that would require abortion providers to ask patients why they are terminating their pregnancies and report the answers to the state, and that would make it a specific crime coerce someone into having an abortion.
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Fingerhut reported from Oakland, New Jersey, and Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
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